Advice needed please

Hi, I'm not happy in my marriage at all, been married for over 27 years and I just don't feel the same any more.

We have 3 children aged 28, 24 and 15. My husband is not my youngest' s dad.

We don't own our own house, there are no savings so would a clean break be my best option?

Also, what would be considered as grounds for a divorce?

Many thanks in advance for any advice

Confused1972

Assuming you are continuing to live together and that there has been no recent adultery by your husband then if you want a divorce sooner rather than later the ground for divorce will be unreasonable behaviour. This is by far the most common ground for divorce because, in effect, it enables divorce on demand without any period of waiting. It applies in almost all cases of marriage breakdown and the courts do not demand extreme instances of unreasonable behaviour. Any competent solicitor should be able to elicit enough information from you in order to draft such a petition.

As to whether a clean break is best that very much depends upon your respective financial circumstances and factors such as whether the biological father of your youngest is maintaining him, whether you are anticipating an inheritance and such like.

Thank you for your response Mr Terry, my husband clearly knows that he is not the biological father, but the real father doesn't know about my son.

My husband has never treated my son any different to our other two children.

I'm not expecting to inherit anything as my mother passed away 18 months ago, and my husband's parents have both passed on, over 20 years ago.

We are both employed and we both pay the bills. I know my husband has at least 2 credit cards, but would I have to pay towards those if we divorced?

As my son may only attending college for one year from September, I wouldn't really expect my husband to pay child support even though my husband hasn't treated him any differently.

Should I seek advice from a solicitor?

Many thanks

You would not have to pay towards your husband's credit cards, no. And if your husband has treated the 15 year old as a child of the family then he will have to help maintain that child until he ceases to be dependent. I suppose the only other possible issue is whether either or both of you have any significant pension provision. If you do then there may be an issue about sharing pensions. You have, after all, been together for a long time.

We both have work pensions, he was a civil servant for 20 plus years before being made redundant plus his current employers pension. I have my NHS pension which I have been paying into for the past 11 years.

Well, pensions may be an issue which needs to be settled then. If, say, both your pensions were of equivalent value that would be fine and nothing would have to be done. However, that is unlikely and this is a long marriage. If there is a significant difference in your pensions which cannot be adjusted for in any other way you will very likely need a pension sharing order. That is not necessarily complicated if you were both in agreement about it but it would need a court order. Also, it may be sensible to defer seeking decree absolute until the pensions issue has been resolved.

If I decided that I didn't wish to have any of his pension, would a court order still need to be obtained?

Many thanks

Even if neither of you want to make any financial claim against the other it is still sensible to have a court order which formally dismisses all claims. To fully understand why that is usually a wise thing to do you may wish to read this page:-

[terry.uk]